Here’s a new rule for public figures I think we should implement immediately: anything said about someone in the aftermath of their death should be what the speaker or writer would gladly say to the deceased’s grieving family.

We’d need to come up with a timeframe to work with.

Perhaps a month.

And we’d have to figure out who can police this.

It can’t be the government, so maybe an independent board of public figures with a moral conscience needs to be set up.

But whatever we come up with would vastly improve the quality and tone of public commentary in Australia.

And by God is that improvement needed.

Look at what people have thought it necessary, even entertaining, to say in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

A 31-year-old father of two.

Senator Fatima Payman in a TikTok

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